


Give a little time to me, or burn this out

by hopelessly_me



Series: How to Mend Our Broken Hearts [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Clint wants to fix things, M/M, Upset Bucky, Upset Clint, ended relationship, heavily referenced Ameriwinterhawk, relationships are hard, reluctant Bucky, surprised Clint, surprised bucky, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessly_me/pseuds/hopelessly_me
Summary: After talking to Steve, Clint's next step it to talk to Bucky, who isn't exactly an easy guy to find. When he does find him, he's met with a surprise, messy emotions, and trying to find a way to bridge the gap between the three of them.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: How to Mend Our Broken Hearts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964884
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60





	Give a little time to me, or burn this out

Clint had to hand it to Bucky- he was never one to make things easy, including trying to track him down. Clint walked into the bar, looked around, then walked towards the back. There were hallways leading to a “secret back part”, purple lights that delighted Clint to no end. If it wasn’t for the fact that he liked _his_ bar with the shitty barstools and the warmest welcomes he would consider making a switch.

With a flash of his Avengers card and a wink, Clint was permitted to the back- somehow he had a feeling that may come back to bite him in the ass but it was worth it when he saw Bucky leaned over a pool table, lining up a shot. It had been a little less than eight months and yet he could pick Bucky up anywhere. His movements were smooth, and his hair was-

“What in the fuck, Bucky,” Clint asked a little louder than what he intended.

Bucky straightened himself out, muscles tense, before he turned around, picking the cue up and putting it behind his head, his arms on either side. It pulled his shirt up a bit, but Clint couldn’t even focus on that because something was so different that it gave him pause. Bucky had always talked about cutting his hair. Clint had offered a dozen times while they were dating- it was a secret talent that Clint mostly kept to himself. There were a few times Bucky almost let him cut it, would even sit down and wait patiently, but whenever Clint got the scissors out Bucky would get up and leave the room. Seeing him now with short hair- Clint wasn’t sure how to take that.

“Clint? What are you doing here?” Bucky asked casually.

“Kinda obvious isn’t it?” Clint asked, sticking his hands in his jacket pockets. “Kinda came here because you’re here. Kinda need to talk with you.”

Bucky watched him with a critical eye before he picked up his cigarette, turning away from Clint. It wasn’t like Bucky smoked often- he mostly did it as one of those coping mechanisms for when he was too stressed out. It wasn’t exactly healthy but Clint was pretty sure Bucky couldn’t die from it. Either way, it wasn’t one of Clint’s favorite habits of his, but he tolerated it better than Steve did. Clint could still remember seeing Bucky smoking for the first time, sighing heavily and asking if he was going to tell Steve, as if Clint was that kind of snitch.

“What do you want to talk about?” Bucky asked, swinging his cue around and lining up another shot.

Clint knew that Bucky damn well knew what he wanted to talk about. What else was there to talk about? The weather? Clint wasn’t sure what his game was, what Bucky might be playing at. Probably used the fact Clint hated emotional, awkward talks and would walk away without a word. It wasn’t like Clint hadn’t done it before, three years ago when they had first started dating. But he was learning, and he was trying, and Clint knew this was something he didn’t want to run away from.

“About everything, I guess,” Clint answered. Bucky gave a nod as he shot, walking around the table slowly. Clint watched him, Bucky’s face perfectly blank. “Come on, do we really have to do this here?” he asked.

“All we are doing is talking, Clint,” Bucky answered, taking another shot.

Now he really was playing off Clint’s disliking to talking about his feelings. He was pretty sure Bucky was using being in public as a way to help himself out. Clint hated it. There was a time in his life where this wouldn’t have been important to him; young Clint could have taken the closest drink, poured it over the guy’s head, and maybe, for extra dramatics, smashed the glass on top of it all.

Those people weren’t Bucky though, not even close. They weren’t the guy he fell in love with. They weren’t the guy who rescued a cat from the middle of the street, taking a car out in the process. They weren’t Bucky, who could somehow pull Clint out his weird funks as if it were easy. They weren’t Bucky and Steve, trying to dance like they had done back in the day, laughing; Clint could still remember when Bucky excitedly found clothes “just like we used to wear, Stevie” and demanded a date night. It was still, secretly, one of Clint’s favorite date nights with all three of them together.

Clint wanted it all back, or at least as much of it as he could. Which meant he had to swallow down the panic he felt over feeling exposed and just come out and say it. Steve at least made it easy on him in that regard- Steve had always been good at letting Clint talk on his own time; Bucky was the one who liked to push the envelope, enjoyed making Clint try harder. Steve helped Clint settle into being the person he was while Bucky was the one who helped Clint explore sides of himself he never really would have done on his own.

Bucky had his back turned to Clint and the room seemed oddly empty, oddly quiet. Clint swallowed and used his tongue to poke at the sides of his cheeks for a moment before he stepped closer. He grabbed the cue before Bucky could shoot, pulling it back.

“I miss us,” Clint admitted. Bucky turned, resting his thigh on the side of the pool table. “I miss everything we had, or talked about having I guess.” Bucky’s eyebrows pulled down. “I don’t like how things ended, it’s been driving me crazy. So I figured… last ditch effort.” Clint offered Bucky an awkward, hesitant smile and a half hearted shrug. “At least this way maybe I understand why you ghosted me like-” 

Clint wanted to say like he didn’t matter, but that was taking it to a level he didn’t want to touch. But with what words Clint did let out, Bucky visibly winced. There was some hesitation before he set the cue down.

“Clint, I didn’t mean for you to-” Bucky began to say. He looked down and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to pull away but there was too much and I couldn’t- I couldn’t give you what you needed. I never intended to make you feel like you didn’t matter. I just couldn’t… cope.”

“Yeah, well, kinda fudged that up,” Clint answered.

Bucky looked up, defensive and ready for a fight. Clint had seen the look so many times before he was familiar with it. “You also need to realize that there was more than just-”

“I already talked to Steve,” Clint said and Bucky’s mouth hung open for a moment before he closed it. “He was easier to track down- his side of this made more sense. So I talked to him first.”

“He tell you everything?” Bucky asked.

Clint shook his head. “He told me his side of things, which is all he could. Not like he can tell your story.” Bucky’s jaw was set tight- another sign of him putting up his walls. Clint knew this was going to be the harder of the two talks. “Can we… go somewhere else to talk?” he asked. “I don’t- I don’t like this.” He raised his hands and let them fall back down, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Just give me an hour and I’ll be out of your hair if you want me to be.”

Bucky slowly nodded then stepped away from the table. “Come on.” 

Clint simply followed him, no questions asked. He was surprised when Bucky went to an exit door and started climbing the staircase nearby. Clint looked around before he followed. It was too many flights up, which Clint wanted desperately to whine about; back ten months ago he would have, just so he could watch Bucky roll his eyes and listen to Steve give a lecture about physical fitness. Clint liked getting Steve going just as much as Bucky did- he was just naturally better at it.

Bucky opened the door to the roof and held it as Clint snuck by. “Hey so… if this is where you are gonna push me off-”

“I’m not going to push you off. Shut up,” Bucky said, half groaning as he walked by Clint. He perched himself at the edge, his feet dangling over. Clint took his time doing the same, sitting as close as he thought Bucky would allow without feeling crowded.

They sat like that in the quiet for a few minutes. Clint felt the cold air nipping at his nose, the tips of his ears, but there was never going to be a time that Clint would walk away from Bucky when he wanted to sit up on a rooftop. It was their thing now- their little escape that not even Steve walked in on without asking. Clint loved being up high- it gave him the best vantage point, and it deterred people from coming after him. Bucky liked it because up high meant more space, which meant he could breathe.

“I didn’t want to leave. I just didn’t know how to stay,” Bucky said, just loud enough to make sure Clint heard it. Clint turned himself enough to look at Bucky as he stared out at the city. “After the argument with Steve I was feeling pretty heated. We all agreed that choices mattered. We couldn’t take each other’s choices away because we… we needed that.” 

There was a quiver in his voice and he stopped, settling himself. “I wanted to prove Steve wrong- that everything was going to be fine whether we stayed Avengers or retired. And then you got hurt in Perth and I just- I lost it. I couldn’t decide if he was right or wrong, but I knew I couldn’t give you the ultimatum that Steve gave me because you didn’t deserve that.”

That was the call they had gone on right before Bucky had disappeared on him, just like Steve had. Clint wasn’t seriously injured, or at least in his mind he wasn’t. He had gotten hit upside the head and was unconscious, but Tony had been right there. He wasn’t broken, he didn’t have anything that needed stitches; a few rough bruises, a goose egg the size of Goose, and a nice sleep was what Clint was handed to him. And when he woke up Bucky was long gone.

“I told myself to walk it off, calm down, collect then come back,” Bucky continued. “But Steve’s words kept playing in my ear. One of these days one of us wasn’t going to come back. And I know, I _know_ , that you aren’t fragile, that you can withstand a whole hell of a lot, Clint. But that doesn’t mean neither of us worried like crazy over you.” Bucky looked over, somehow keeping his resolve while Clint was blinking back tears. “You sent all those texts and I realized I hurt you just like Steve hurt you, like Steve hurt me. And I guess I couldn’t figure out a way to force myself to make it up to you. I didn’t think-” Bucky let out a breath, the mist of air hanging between them for a moment. “I thought after the first two months you would be angry and over us both. That you would realize you deserved better than what we did. So I just… went on. It’s a terrible excuse, my explanation is in the dumps.”

Clint nodded then looked away, wiping his eyes before he rubbed his head. He nearly jumped when he felt Bucky rest a hand on his back and he glanced over, Bucky’s eyes focused out towards the city. Clint took that moment to compose himself, thankful for the quiet.

It took a few minutes before inched closer to Bucky, brushing up against him with the best smile he could afford, which was shaky at best. “What’s with the hair?” he asked, laughing lightly.

Bucky’s face turned into what was almost a pout. “It’s kept getting in my way and I was tired of screwing with it. Guess I got used to you wanting to braid it or throw it up in a bun that when left on my own I just…” Bucky smiled a little and ran his hand through it before it rested on the back of his neck. “I know you always offered to cut it, but I _liked_ you playing with it. Without you around it was just another chore I had to keep up on.”

Clint’s smile started to become less shaky. “I like it,” he said. He reached up, Bucky’s eyes following him until Clint could run his fingers through the short hair. “You act like I didn’t sit there and go to town on Steve’s hair.”

“You didn’t play with his hair, you massaged his- _oh_ ,” Bucky said when Clint turned, using his other hand to do exactly what he used to do with Steve. Scalp massages were always his thing with Steve- Steve always got those headaches and it was the easiest way for Clint to feel helpful. Steve would melt over the scalp massages just like Bucky did when Clint would have his hands tangled up in his hair. “You have been holding out on me,” Clint barely caught Bucky murmur.

Clint dropped his hands to Bucky’s shoulder. “I still love you,” Clint said. “Despite you being an absolute jerk, I still want you in my life. But that includes Steve.”

“Clint, I-”

“Just talk with him,” Clint encouraged. “Please, Buck? I don’t ask for much but if you still love-”

Bucky stepped up and cut off the words before Clint could finish them. It was rushed, a flurry of passion and heat all at one moment, like it had been building for a long time. It was like the ones post mission, where Clint and Bucky would find each other and it was long awaited, an explosion of relief.

Clint pulled back first, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s so they could both catch their breath. Clint’s hands pulled up, feeling Bucky’s shoulders, finding their spots on Bucky’s neck to hold him close for just a little while longer. Bucky’s hands gripped Clint’s waist, a little on the painful side, but it was a reminder that he was still there- Clint wasn’t sure which of them needed that reminder more.

“I missed you,” Clint whispered.

“I missed you too, sunshine,” Bucky answered. Clint felt himself smiling as a thought popped into his head and he tilted his head up, placing a kiss to Bucky’s forehead. “What’s so funny?”

“Steve owes me ten bucks and a pizza,” Clint answered.

Bucky opened his eyes and looked up at Clint. “... I don’t want to know. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know.”

“It wasn’t anything _bad_ ,” Clint laughed, shoving Bucky away. Bucky caught his hands and pulled Clint with him. “So… can we go somewhere warm because I am freezing. And you hate the cold.”

“Steve at your place? Or the Tower?” Bucky asked.

“My place,” Clint answered.

Bucky nodded then grinned. “What do you say for tonight you come over to my place, doll?” he asked, wrapping an arm around Clint. “We can… watch the shittiest TV there is, I’ll buy a pizza or two, and you can meet my cat.”

“Shit, you got a cat?” Clint asked, eyes wide and surprised for a moment.

Bucky steered them back towards the stairs. “Hell yeah I got a cat. I think you’ll like Alpine. He’s a fluffy asshole.” He grabbed the door for Clint. “I mean… if you want to.”

Clint answered with a fleeting kiss and a grin before he practically raced down the staircase.


End file.
